Specially for Arupadai Veedugal - PALANI

Dated : 24th jan 2015
Crew : Solo with Murugan blessings.

When I visited the first aarupadai veedu, thiruchandur, I thought I should complete the remaining sacred houses of Lord Murugan. The second one, thiruthani was completed in the last visit. Now my plan to visit the remaining houses as early as possible.

But I never thought that I would complete this much soon, that too in a single shot. This time, I was very careful and committed myself that I need to visit only temples. No other places were planned.

The first place started with the PALANI. I started off from the Chennai to the Palani by train. You could avail the Palani Express from Chennai. It is around 9 hours journey. I have reached the central station on time, and the train is waiting for me on 7th platform. Train has started on time. I didn't speak even a word in train, an old couple and middle aged couple covering the berths.

I woke up a little bit soon and train was a little bit too late. I just enjoyed the surrounding hills and farms. Palani journey makes a mind refreshment. The weather was so cool and farms are greenery and it almost looks like a small village, which thrown an ages back. The middle aged couple left in the previous station at some where. The old aged couple has started posing some questions about my being to palani. They just appreciated my Tamil accents and also incepted some info about the temples.

This tour almost resembles my previous tour to Thiruchandur. I got down by 8 in the mrng. I took the first shot from a little distance, which can be viewed from station. Later, I am little feared which way to take, I just started my walk without any enquiry about the route. But I GPS'ed the route. But every time, I am taking so much time to search for hotel. I enquired some couple of hotels, where I could find a single room. Finally, I took a room in the hotel. I had taken my bath along with hair wash as soon as possible and started to the temple.

I had made my visit on the good day, Shasti, which is like day for murugan. I prayed to murugan, that I would come by walk through the temple steps. Even though, it is small amount, not like the number of Tirupathi steps(around 3560 steps), these steps are very less in slant. I have reached the temple by 11 am.

One of the guy, who came for darshanam guided me through the temple steps. The crowd seems to be so much rush. I took the special darshanam line. Hope it would cost around 100 rupess. And all my darshanams has completed in an hour and find a rope way transit to get down from the hill. But I have wasted so much time waiting for the rope bus, almost an hour and after I get down, I walked half way around the hill to reach the starting point. But be aware that the transit will be closing on sharp timings for lunch. And there are two counters for transit, which both lead to the same destination. But the only difference is, for the lesser price ticket, will get a call for less members. And for the higher price, more members.

Fortunately, the guy who helped me to guide earlier, I met him after I reach the starting point. Then we both moved to the hotel room and started my next journey. 

We finished our lunch and started to next MURUGAN VEEDU. 

He only helped to get the bus to Madurai as I don't know how to read the letters in Tamil.

* Continue in next post....